Quote:Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker signed a law Thursday that will repeal the state's Equal Pay Enforcement Act, a 2009 bill that had offered legal avenues to fight wage discrimination. The state Senate signed off on the bill in November, and the state Assembly followed in February. In both chambers, it was a party-line vote.

At the same time, Walker signed in a couple of other contentious items. He signed a bill that requires schools to "stress abstinence" in sex education and now allows teachers to "ignore contraception completely" as part of the curriculum. Walker also signed two bills regarding abortion "requiring doctors to consult privately with women seeking abortions and blocking abortion coverage through health care exchanges." Walker apparently signed all of these items on Thursday, but waited until late Friday to announce it, a handy tactic to make sure it gets lost from the news cycle. http://chicagoist.com/2012/04/08/gov_walker_repeals_wisconsin_equal.php the repeal of the equal-pay law:

Quote:State Sen. Glenn Grothman, who introduced the bill to repeal the Equal Pay Enforcement Act, has introduced a couple of other bills which show his mentality:

Quote:Whatever gaps exist, he insists, stem from women’s decision to prioritize childrearing over their careers. “Take a hypothetical husband and wife who are both lawyers,” he says. “But the husband is working 50 or 60 hours a week, going all out, making 200 grand a year. The woman takes time off, raises kids, is not go go go. Now they’re 50 years old. The husband is making 200 grand a year, the woman is making 40 grand a year. It wasn’t discrimination. There was a different sense of urgency in each person.”

He continues, “What you’ve got to look at, and Ann Coulter has looked at this, is you have to break it down by married and unmarried. Once you break it down by married and unmarried, the differential disappears.”

Quote:Women in Arizona trying to get reimbursed for birth control drugs through their employer-provided health plan could be required to prove that they are taking it for a medical reason such as acne, rather than to prevent pregnancy.

A bill nearing passage in the Republican-led Legislature allows all employers, not just religious institutions, to opt out of providing contraceptive coverage when doing so would violate their religious or moral beliefs.

When a female worker uses birth control pills, which can be used to treat a number of medical conditions, the bill would allow an employer who opted out to require her to reveal what she was taking it for in order to get reimbursed.

Under the Arizona bill, employers who opt out could make women provide documentation from their health care provider.

Liza Love, a mental health worker, testified Monday before a Senate committee to oppose the bill, saying she would be required to disclose that she needed contraceptives to treat endometriosis, which is excessive growth of the uterine lining.

"That's nothing that you as my employer ... have a right to know," she said.

Opponents of the legislation suggested that the application process might violate a federal law on privacy of medical information. A supporter, Republican Rep. Edie Farnsworth, said it wouldn't because seeking reimbursements is voluntary.

This is nonsense. When a woman has a heavy menstrual flow, that often means she is shedding a fertilized egg—does that mean a human being just died?

In addition to the back alley abortions which will happen, and which will take women’s lives, there will also be financial costs: a flood of lawsuits, both from those seeking to expand the new powers, while seeking to block them. Legal bills must be paid by Mississippi, which can ill afford them.

Consider just a few of the problems Mississippi’s people will suffer:

First, the law is cruel, allowing for no exceptions. No pregnancy may ever be terminated: not even the incestual rape of a minor.

After this horrendous attack, the woman (or girl) would required by law to bear the child of the rapist; if she chose the “morning-after” pill to end the pregnancy, she would, according to the undeniable consequences of the law, be subject to prosecution for murder.

What about a pregnancy which endangers the life of the mother? Again, no exceptions are listed.

A miscarriage could be investigated like a crime scene, to find out if it was an abortion.

Many forms of birth control will be criminalized, including very likely “the pill”.

Quote:The Arizona Senate has okayed legislation that will let doctors lie about an unborn child’s health and escape any related “wrongful birth” suits.

Arizona senators have called for a law that will, if passed, eliminate malpractice suits that are brought on by families that believe doctors willingly withheld information about their unborn children. In instances across the state, some families have sued physicians after giving birth to children with disabilities and handicaps that they believe doctors were aware of before delivery. Some state residents have waged lawsuits based on allegations that physicians were not clear with crucial information which, had the parents been privy to, could have led them to consider abortion.
If the new law is passed, doctors would not be liable in these cases for failing to make clear any and all risks the unborn child faces. Specifically, Arizona Senate Bill 1359 relieves a defendant of liability for damages in a suit “based on a claim that, but for an act or omission of the defendant, a child or children would not or should not have been born." More at http://rt.com/usa/news/lawsuit-arizona-birth-abortion-149/

Virginia's trans-vaginal ultrasound law. We all know about that one.

The GOP is currently opposing reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act:

Quote:For the first time in its history the landmark Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) faces partisan opposition to renewal as Republicans hold up protections for victims of domestic abuse over concerns the measure helps too many people.

The bill for re-authorization sponsored by Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Sen. Mike Crapo (R-Idaho)–who is not on the Judiciary Committee– would place an increased emphasis on reducing domestic homicides and sexual assault, strengthen housing protections for domestic violence victims and focus more on the high rates of violence among teens and young adults.Despite these loft goals the legislation attracted no GOP support in committee and was passed out on a party-line vote of 10-8. According to Leahy’s office, this is the first time VAWA legislation did not receive bipartisan backing out of committee.

The Republican-led objections are starting to sound a lot like those swirling around the birth-control mandate.

Leahy is concerned that his colleagues are objecting because, in his words, the bill is trying to “protect too many victims.” “You cannot say that we will seek to stop domestic violence, but only for certain people,” he said. “It just boggles the mind. It goes against everything I ever knew as a prosecutor, but it also goes against everything I know as a human being.” More at http://topics.dallasnews.com/article/0eey0L87l436A?q=Mike+Crapo; latest effort to block Planned Parenthood from receiving state funds:

Quote: Delia Henry was tired but had no idea her blood sugar was high when she went to Planned Parenthood for her annual gynecological exam. The clinic referred her to a doctor, who diagnosed her with diabetes.

The 31-year-old nursing student said she would have skipped the exam since she has no insurance, but she had just signed up for Texas' Women's Health Program, which provides cancer screenings, contraceptives and basic health care to about 130,000 low-income women through Medicaid.

But under a state law taking effect Wednesday, Henry and other eligible women won't be able to get care at Planned Parenthood clinics — which treat about 44% of the program's patients — or other facilities with ties to abortion providers, meaning those women will have to find new health-care providers.

The $40 million program is at the center of a faceoff between conservative Republican lawmakers and the federal government, which provides 90% of the program's funding. Although Texas already forbids taxpayer money from going to organizations that provide abortions, the law will cut off clinics with any affiliation to a provider, even if it's just a shared name, employee or board member.

"The program is vital. But now when women call another clinic and are told they have to wait to get an appointment, it will deter them from going and will be detrimental to their health," said Henry, of Austin, who credits the program with saving her life. "It infuriates me what the lawmakers are doing. You have to question: Do they really care?"

Plus, more than a dozen facilities that provided health care to poor women recently closed because of budget cuts. Lawmakers last year slashed state funding for women's health and family planning programs by $73.6 million, cutting services to 160,000 women. They also took $10 million out of a another family planning budget line and shifted responsibility for providing those services onto the managed care organizations that administer Medicaid in Texas.

Quote:When I wrote about the Topeka, Kansas city council’s move to decriminalize domestic violence in the city I assumed that public outcry and backlash would drive the law into the rocks. Surely once the city council had been barraged with angry phone calls, protests, and bad press they would back off and consider less extreme measures to tighten up the city budget.

I was wrong:

Quote:“It’s no longer illegal to abuse a spouse if you’re in Topeka, Kan. — at least under city law.

The Topeka City Council voted Tuesday night to repeal the city’s misdemeanor domestic battery law. The issue, which had become a bargaining chip in an awkward battle over local and county budgets, has so far seen the release of 30 abuse suspects, according to the Kansas City Star.

Felony domestic abuse cases continued to be prosecuted, but the Star reported that one abuse suspect has been arrested and released twice since the budget spat started last month.

"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." -- William Casey, Reagan's presidential campaign manager & CIA Director (from first staff meeting in 1981)

Didn't Arizona also just pass a law that defines "life" as beginning at the end of your last menstrual period?

I enlisted in the "War on Women" back when I was a lad in grade school. We called it the "War on Girls." Over the years, I have risen through the ranks of the He-Man-Woman-Haters-Club, and been decorated several times for valor.

One result of the war has been arms escalation. We've learned that legislation and litigation are more effective than spitballs and taunts. The issue, however, remains the same: the world will not be a safe place until all cooties are eradicated.

Quote:Originally posted by Kwicko:
Didn't Arizona also just pass a law that defines "life" as beginning at the end of your last menstrual period?

Hello,

Yes, my understanding is that life now begins up to two weeks before conception.

--Anthony

Note to Self:
Raptor - women who want to control their reproductive processes are sluts.
Wulf - Niki is a stupid fucking bitch who should hurry up and die.
Never forget what these men are. “The stupid neither forgive nor forget; the naive forgive and forget; the wise forgive but do not forget.” -Thomas Szasz

"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." -- William Casey, Reagan's presidential campaign manager & CIA Director (from first staff meeting in 1981)

Quote:Originally posted by ANTHONYT:

Quote:Originally posted by Kwicko:
Didn't Arizona also just pass a law that defines "life" as beginning at the end of your last menstrual period?

Hello,

Yes, my understanding is that life now begins up to two weeks before conception.

I used to think Arizona was just this vast, desolate post-Apocalyptic crazy place where Reason had taken one look around and said "I'm scared; it's dark in here, and we may die," and then run away.

Now I fear it's the precursor of where great swaths of this country are headed.

"Although it is not true that all conservatives are stupid people, it is true that most stupid people are conservatives." - John Stuart Mill

What's interesting is that this entire thread turned into one joke after another...it's JUST that insane, isn't it? It's come to the point where what we hear going on is just so mad that while we take it seriously, we just CAN'T take it seriously...know what I mean? As Jim said last night, "Canada is looking better all the time". Not that it's perfect up there, but THIS?!?!

What absolutely boggles my mind is that, with all this Ted Nugent bullshit and West and all not raising a peep out of the party who screams bloody murder if someone can be made to sound like they're dissing mothers (which she wasn't, as they and we fully well know). And further, that with all the craziness of primaries in that party, Obama and Romney are still CLOSE! As I agreed in another thread, I'm awfully close to believing that the Republican party has gone completely over the edge, and as Mike said, great swaths of them already LIVE there!

I can't believe this is going to go on. I keep waiting for the pushback, the backlash, but it only seems to be coming from the left.

Quote:Originally posted by Niki2:
I can't believe this is going to go on. I keep waiting for the pushback, the backlash...

That's the part that really, truly, frightens me, you see.
Cause it's gonna be Robespierre and the Reign of Terror all over again, or at least it might be.
And while I would weep for the innocent caught up in it, I am unsure whether I should do anything to prevent or restrain it, in fact a very large part of me is willing to INITIATE it...
But I know better.

And that, I think, is the critical difference between us... and them.
But maybe not for very much longer.

"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." -- William Casey, Reagan's presidential campaign manager & CIA Director (from first staff meeting in 1981)

And the war on women continues, with Virginia Speaker (and former chairman of ALEC) berating woman:

VA Speaker And Ex-ALEC Chair Berates Woman — ‘I’m Not Speaking In Little Enough Words For You To Understand’

You know, funny thing about The Handmaid's Tale... It was a combination of toxic belligerence and gender warfare, state sponsored monogramy, the failure of archaeic and insulting concepts such as romantic love, denial of basic human sexuality, and people's obsession about gender roles that lead to that horrible future.

Quote:The novel indicates that pre-Gileadian society was not favorable for women. This society was a late 20th-century version of the United States as Atwood envisioned it developing at the time of its writing (1985). In this society, women feared physical and sexual violence, and despite long-running feminist campaigns (approximately 1970–2000 within the text), they had not achieved equality. Feminist campaigners like Offred's mother and Moira were persecuted by the state. Radical feminism had teamed up with social conservativism in campaigns against pornography. In addition, mass commercialization had reached a nadir of "fast-food" and "home delivery" sexuality. Women outside of prostitution in "the former times" were subject to a socially constructed vision of romantic love that encouraged serial monogamy in favor of men's social and sexual interests.

Quote: On a day when Republicans desperately are trying to play down their “war on women,” this apparent sexism by the man who presided over and backed House passage of a forced trans-vaginal ultrasound bill so extreme that even Gov. Bob McDonnell (R) wouldn’t support, hardly helps their cause.

I like the response:

Quote:Update: The Farm Team, a group whose goal is “to recruit, support and elect Democratic women to ALL levels of elected office in the Commonwealth of Virginia” released a statement in response to Howell’s comments:

Quote:Speaker Howell, the women of Virginia understand lots of big, multiple syllable words, like discrimination, trans-vaginal probe, and denial of preventative health care services. Your comment to Anna Scholl belittles every woman in the Commonwealth, including your wife, your daughters-in-law and grand-daughters.. We deserve and expect better. On behalf of 51 percent of Virginia’s population, we hope that you apologize to Anna Scholl. It is the very least you can do.

His remarks are an excellent example of the attitude of those such as him who see women as "less than" and worthy of mockery.

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